In recent years, personal computers (PCs), which includes work stations and the like, have grown increasingly sophisticated. During this period, the programs that run on PCs have increased in complexity and, correspondingly, in size. As a result, the capacity and usefulness of the current floppy disk drive, a standard feature in many PCs, have been surpassed by the size of the programs the floppy was designed to bear. Whereas, software developers previously distributed their products via floppy disk, they have increasingly been forced to use alternative methods, such as CD-ROM.
Despite the trend against the usefulness of the floppy disk drive, the need for the removability that the floppy disk drive provides has remained--providing diagnostic support in the event of a system failure, backing-up data files and the like. For example, if the fixed disk drive becomes corrupted, users turn to the floppy disk drive to attempt to recover. In such a case, a user boots the PC from the floppy disk drive thereby gaining entry to the PC. Once the PC is booted the user can use diagnostic tools on a floppy disk to attempt to repair the fixed disk drive; however, the limited capacity of a floppy disk poses severe constraints on the sophistication of the diagnostic tools that can be used. Larger capacity devices can overcome part of the problem, but a device that aspires to replace the floppy disk drive in a PC should also provide support for booting.
Vander Kamp et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,918, suggests using a CD-ROM drive to overcome the short-comings of the floppy drive. As such, Vander Kamp teaches a method of booting a PC from a CD-ROM. Unfortunately, CD-ROMs need special BIOSes and limit the user to the tools supplied by a particular software vendor. As a result, the user is unable to mix and match preferred tools. Unlike a CD-ROM drive user, the user of a removable media drive has the capability to customize the software on the media to suit particular needs.
Recently, removable media disk drives having storage capacities characteristic of fixed disk drives and removability characteristic of floppy disk drives have been developed. Throughout this application, such drives will be referred to as "removable media drives" for brevity and to distinguish them from standard floppy disk drives. Unlike floppy disk drives, these removable media drives have the capacity to store entire operating systems and sophisticated diagnostic tools. However, to fully utilize the capacity of such a removable media drive, in the current PC environment, it must be configured as a fixed disk. This requirement has complicated the integration of removable media drives into the PC system. For example, the removable media drives must be configured as fixed disk drives, such as "C" or "D," while floppy disk drives are generally configured as "A" or "B." Unfortunately, conventional PCs only permit users to boot from the floppy "A" drive or the fixed "C" drive. However, if the removable media drive is configured as the "C" drive, conventional personal computer systems constrain the user to always have bootable media present in the drive at system start-up. Furthermore, the users ability to swap media in the removable media drive during system operation is also severely inhibited. In co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/599,346 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,694,600), which has been assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, method and apparatus are disclosed that provide for booting a PC from a removable media drive configured as the first fixed disk drive, i.e. drive "C".
When the removable media drive is configured as the "C" drive, the need for a floppy disk drive is diminished. For example, the removable media drive overcomes many of the floppy disk drive shortcomings by virtue of the increased capacity of the removable media. However, configuring the removable media disk drive as the "C" drive requires changes to the operating system configuration. For example, many popular programs prefer to run programs from the "C" drive. Consequently, using the removable media disk drive as a floppy drive replacement when configured as the "C" drive requires most permanent programs to reside on the "D" drive. Moreover, if the permanent programs reside on the "D" drive, while many popular programs prefer to run off of the "C" drive, program compatibility problems may arise.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a large capacity removable media drive that can replace the standard floppy disk drive, while leaving the conventional fixed disk drive configured as drive "C."